Thirty-two

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, WE were a mile from the truck stop, trudging through a field. Ahead was a road that ran alongside the highway.

“You don’t think we did the right thing,” Derek said.

I shrugged.

“I didn’t tie him too tight. He’ll get out in an hour, probably less, and I left his cell phone right there, in case there’s any problem.”

I nodded. We walked another fifty feet.

“What would you have done?” he asked.

“You know my plan. It’s the one you pretended not to hear.”

We reached the roadside before he answered. “Yeah, okay. I heard. But it didn’t look to me like he was going to give you a chance to escape. I knew I could take him down safely, without hurting him, before things got worse. And if I can do that, then that’s the choice I’m going to make. It’s how our dad taught us to handle situations like that.”

I considered it, then nodded. “You’re right.”

He looked surprised.

“I don’t have experience with this stuff, these kinds of decisions,” I said. “With the girl in the alley or the Edison Group, the answer was easy. If someone’s trying to hurt us, we have every right to strike back. It’s just …”

“That guy was trying to help a couple of runaways. He didn’t deserve to end up bound and gagged.”

I nodded.

“Even someone like that is a threat, Chloe. Whether he means to be or not. We had to get away or his ‘help’ would have landed us back with the Edison Group.”

“I know.”

We moved to the side of the road for a passing car, tensing as it went by, making sure the brake lights didn’t flash, the car didn’t slow. It wouldn’t matter if the driver was a psycho trying to abduct us or a grandmother offering us a lift. We had to react the same way. Run. And if we couldn’t run, fight.

The car continued, speed unchecked.

“We can’t trust anyone now,” I murmured, “even the good guys.”

“Yeah. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

It did.

* * *

We continued down back roads running roughly parallel to the highway. Judging by how long we’d been in the van, Derek figured we had to be close to the next town with a bus stop, but the truth was that we had no idea. However far it was, we had to walk it—we weren’t about to hitch another ride.

One problem with our quiet country stroll was the dogs. Those tied up launched into a barking frenzy when they caught a whiff of Derek. No one seemed concerned, though— out here, I guess there were so few passersby that dogs did tend to bark at them, and owners ignored it.

However, being in the country also meant that a lot of those dogs weren’t chained. More than one came charging down a driveway. Eventually, our reaction became automatic. At the first note of a bark, we’d stop walking. I’d move behind Derek. He’d stand his ground and wait. Once the dog got within eye contact range, it would take one good look at Derek and run, yelping, for safety.

“Do they always back down like that?” I asked as we watched a yellow Lab race back home, tail between its legs.

“Depends on the dog. Big country dogs like these? Yeah. It’s the fancy city ones that give me trouble. Overbred, Dad says. Makes them skittish and screws up their wiring. I had a Chihuahua attack me last year.” He showed me a faint scar on his hand. “Took a good chunk out.”

I sputtered a laugh. “A Chihuahua?”

“Hey, that thing was more vicious than a pit bull. I was at a park with Simon, kicking around a ball. All of a sudden, this little rat dog comes tearing out of nowhere, jumps up, and clamps down on my hand. Wouldn’t let go. I’m shaking it, and the owner’s yelling at me not to hurt little Tito. I finally get the dog off. I’m bleeding all over the place and the guy never even apologizes.”

“He didn’t think it was strange? His dog attacking you like that?”

“Nah. He said the soccer ball must have provoked it, and we needed to be more careful. When strange stuff happens, people come up with their own explanations.”

I told him about the girl in the alley, accusing Tori of tasering her.

“Yeah,” he said. “We have to be careful, but they’ll usually explain it away themselves.”

We moved aside as a pickup passed, the driver lifting a hand in greeting. I waved back, then watched until I was sure he wasn’t going to stop.

“So do all animals react that way to you? I know you said rats steer clear.”

“Most do. They see a human, but they smell something else. It confuses them. Canines are the worst, though.” He paused. “No, cats are the worst. I really don’t like cats.”

I laughed. As the shadows lengthened, Derek moved us across the road to the sunny side.

“I went to the zoo once,” he continued. “Fifth grade field trip. Dad said I couldn’t because of the werewolf thing. I was pissed. Really pissed. Back then, I didn’t freak animals out. I just made them nervous. So I decided Dad was being unfair and went anyway.”

“How?”

“Forged his name and saved my allowance.”

“So what happened?”

“Pretty much what Dad figured. I made the predators nervous and totally freaked out the prey animals. My classmates thought it was cool, though. They got to see an elephant charge.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I felt bad. So I stayed back from the pens after that. They weren’t what I wanted to see anyway.”

“Which was? Wait. The wolves, right?”

He nodded.

“You wanted to see if they’d recognize you as one of them.”

“Nah. Nothing silly like that.” He walked in silence for a moment. “Okay. Exactly like that. I had this …” He struggled for a word.

“Fantasy?”

A glower said that wasn’t the word he’d have chosen. “This idea that they’d smell me and …” He shrugged. “I don’t know what. Just that they’d do something. That something cool would happen.”

“Did it?”

“Sure, if you consider it cool to watch a wolf batter itself bloody against the fence.”

“Oh.”

“It was …” His gaze went distant, staring off down the road, expression unreadable. “Bad. I got out of there as fast as I could, but he didn’t stop. The next day a kid at school said they put the wolf to sleep.”

I looked up at Derek.

He continued, gaze still fixed on the road. “I went home and grabbed the paper. The city section was missing. Dad had gotten to it first. He’d figured out what had happened, but he wasn’t going to say anything. He knew I’d been upset about something that night, and I guess he thought that was punishment enough. So I went to the store and bought a paper myself. It was true.”

I nodded, not sure what to say.

“ ‘Sudden, unprovoked aggression toward humans,’ ” he recited, as if he’d never forgotten the words. “Wolves don’t normally act like that. All those stories about the big, bad wolf are crap. Yeah, they’re predators, and they’re dangerous. But they don’t want to have anything to do with humans if they can avoid it. The only time they do is if they’re sick, starving, or defending their territory. I was a lone wolf invading a pack’s turf. He was the alpha. It was his duty to protect his pack. And he got killed for it.”

“You didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“That’s no excuse. Dad taught me about wolves. I knew how they behaved. I’d seen it with the other boys, the other subjects …”

“Do you remember them? Simon wasn’t sure you did.”

“Yeah. I do.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he walked, then looked at me. “You getting tired?”

“A little.”

“It shouldn’t be far now. So, uh …” He seemed to be searching for something to say. I hoped it was more about himself or about the other werewolves, but when he finally spoke, he said, “That special school you go to. You take theater?”

“I’m in the theater arts stream. We still take all the regular classes, like math, English, science….”

And so we shifted to simpler subjects for the rest of the walk.